John Wooden Coach Quotations

As a leader, you will receive a large amount of praise and criticism and you should not unduly affected by either.

I am not a strategic coach; I am a practice coach.

Conditioning is essential to success in basketball.

Do passing drills that come from your offense.

Dictators lead through fear; good coaches do not.

Good coaching is about leadership and instilling respect in your players. Dictators lead through fear - good coaches do not.

You've never heard of them- and you never will .

One of the greatest motivating things that a coach has is the bench. They all love to play, all of them. You sit them on the bench, and they come around pretty good.

You must have respect, which is a part of love, for those under your supervision. Then they will do what you ask and more.

If we, as coaches, aren't teachers, we are nothing

Losing is only temporary and not encompassing. You must simply study it, learn from it, and try hard not to lose the same way again. Then you must have the self-control to forget about it.

It's not what you teach, it's what you emphasize.

Good players can take coaching; great players can take coaching and learn.

I never let our players get satisfied, I never let our Coaches get satisfied, I was never satisfied. We can always do it better.

Be quick without hurrying.

Confidence comes from being prepared.

The coach is first of all a teacher.

Everything we know, we learned from someone else!

Promise yourself to make all your friends know there is something in them that is special and that you value.

Remember this, the choices you make in life, make you.

Over-coaching can be more harmful than under-coaching. Keep it simple!

You haven't taught until they've learned.

The general feeling is, if you don't treat everyone the same you're showing partiality. To me, that's when you show the most partiality, when you treat everyone the same. You must give each individual the treatment that you feel he earns and deserves, recognizing at all times that you're imperfect and you're going to be incorrect oftentimes in your judgment.

Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.

Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but what you should have accomplished with your ability.

Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts.

It isn't what you do, but how you do it.

Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.

Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.

What you are as a person is far more important that what you are as a basketball player.

I never wanted a championship as much as I did that first one, ... After the first one in 1964, the titles seemed to come in droves. I also think I became a better coach after winning that first championship. I still continued to emphasize winning the conference, but I became a better tournament coach, putting less pressure on the players.